1. Teaching CS Principles with App Inventor
ACMSE 2012
Tuscaloosa, AL - March 29, 2012
Jeff Gray, Ph.D. - Associate Professor
University of Alabama
Department of Computer Science

2. Overview General Introduction CS Principles Discussion -2:40-3:30
App Inventor Introduction - 3:30pm-4:20pm
Break - 4:20pm-4:40pm
App Inventor and CS Education Panel
4:40pm-5:30pm

3. Quick Poll How many… …faculty in higher ed? …students (ugrads, grads)?
…K-12 educators?
…have heard of CS Principles in detail?
…have used App Inventor?
…have plans to introduce a CS Principles course at your school (either K-12 or higher ed)?
…are members of CSTA?
…are submitting a CE21 grant this April?

4. CS Principles Overview

5. Demand for Computer Science Grads

6. Demand for Computer Science Grads
National Job Outlook
According to the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE)
$64,210 is the average starting salary for computer science degrees in the class of 2011 (among highest starting salaries); 3.7% increase over 2010 offers
Computer Science tops list of best major for jobs with the highest number of job offers per major (2.8 job offers per major!)
A “Why Study Computer Science” set of outreach slides with additional information like this is available at

7. Local Success vs National Disaster
From Chris Stephenson, CSTA President
In the last few years the commitment to improving computer science education has resulted in pockets of excellence:
New tools (Alice, Scratch, Kodu, App Inventor, …)
New Curricula (Exploring Computer Science, Media Computation…)
New ways of thinking about equity and engagement
But in reality, AP is the only program that has national reach, support, and consequence (and sometimes state funding)
If we are going to achieve a true renaissance in CS education in K-12 we need to make both curriculum and policy changes at the state and national level

8. The Harsh Realities Chris Stephenson, CSTA President
Unless we increase the number of students taking high school CS, our enrollments will continue to languish at the post-secondary level (don’t let the recent bump fill you with false hope)
States are increasing the number of math and science credits students must have in order to graduate, reducing the chances that students can/will take elective courses such as computer science
In states where CS is part of Career and Technical Education, there are pressing certification questions.

9. Challenges with Current CS AP
One of College Board’s lowest participating exam
Very much a “Programming”-centered course, with much content covering syntax and semantics of a specific language (Java)
Deep and less broad
Full range of impact of computing could be missed, as well as exciting contexts to motivate students
Many in-service teachers lack content knowledge to teach current AP exam

10. Current State of AP Coverage
Number of schools passing AP CS Audit
State
Number of Schools
Alabama
Less than 8
(out of > 460)
Tennessee 16
South Carolina 18
North Carolina 28
Florida 69
Georgia 78
New Jersey
133
California
165
Texas
271

11. Current State of AP: Two-state comparison
Alabama population, ages 15-18: 220k
Over 3700 students took AP US History
Nearly 120 took the AP Latin exam
+: Alabama has over 4 times the national average of African American students participating

12. The Importance of the Principles Effort
From Chris Stephenson, CSTA President:
There is no better time than now, and to fail in this commitment is to fail permanently as a discipline in the K-12 system
As a community, we too often begin at what is wrong and tear down, rather than figure out what is right and build up
The recent bump in enrollments at some colleges/universities is more than balanced by the closing of programs at others and this is no time to cut back on our efforts

13. What you can do…. Consider attestation form
Chris Stephenson, CSTA President:
We need a concerted and genuine commitment from all educators (K-16), all organizations, and all corporations to support the new CS Principles course and to work together to help get teachers ready with workshops, resources, standards, relationships

14. Initial Attestation Coverage From Amy Briggs, Middlebury College

15. The Two Rounds of Pilots
Pilot I had 5 universities and 5 high schools
Pilot II currently has 10 universities and 10 high schools, shown below

16. The CS Principles Curriculum Framework
CS Principles groups content ideas (Big Ideas) with various skillsets (CT practices)
The current Pilots participate in deep evaluation of content coverage and skillset development from weekly assessments
Students evaluated several times throughout semester
Source for CS Principles Figures: Amy Briggs

17. CS Principles Big Ideas
Creativity
Computer science enables creative expression of innovative ideas
Abstraction
Abstraction is a key problem solving and organization concept need to provide scale to complex solutions

18. CS Principles Big Ideas
Data
Students need to understand the growing trend of “Big Data” and what that means to their daily lives; great context for introducing data mining
Algorithms
Algorithms are the foundation for expressing a computational solution

19. CS Principles Big Ideas
Programming
Programming is the skill that gives a voice to expressing a computational problem
Internet
Students should develop an understanding of “under the hood” concepts that they take for granted every day

20. CS Principles Big Ideas
Impact
Computer scientists do more than set behind cubes; our solutions foster the world’s economies and bring value to all areas of life;
University of Washington videos:

21. Opportunities for Impact
“… the software industry is going to make more breakthroughs in these next 10 years than it's made in the last 30 … software is really going to transform not just what we think about as the computer industry, but the way that everything is done …”
Wreckless
driving
The Demand for Computer Scientists
Computing will continue to be a dominant science on which every other science, engineering, and business discipline will increasingly rely. Almost all major technology breakthroughs in the future will involve computing.
High school graduates in the 21st century cannot afford to be ignorant of Computer Science principles. This is important for Alabama, which is one of the major developing technology centers in our nation. Having a technology literate workforce will be necessary for continued economic growth.
Quantum computing
Re-architecting the Internet
Transforming all fields
of science and engineering
Prosthetics / augmentation / access
Harnessing parallelism
Transforming the nation’s defense

22. Impact: Software is Everywhere
98% of all microprocessors control devices other than desktop computers
Automobiles, airplanes, televisions, copiers, razors…
These devices also need software and often require strong technical skills to develop

23. Coverage of Big Ideas in Pilot 1
Pilot 1 coverage (from Amy Briggs)
Pilot II data still being collected

24. Computational Thinking Practices
Connecting computing
Developing computational artifacts
Abstracting
Analyzing problems and artifacts
Communicating
Working in a team

25. Future College Board Support Lien Diaz, College Board

26. Summary of Alabama Principles Course
Split between BYOB (Snap!) and App Inventor
Some CS Unplugged Mixed In
Readings
Books: Hal’s Blown to Bits, Wolber et al. App Inventor book
Papers: Wing’s Computational Thinking, Kramer’s Is Abstraction the Key to Computing?
Grades:
Six individual assignments (two short essays)
Two team projects (presentation, implementation)
Three exams and 7 very short quizzes

27. Sample Projects Homework Examples Team Projects Hangman App
Essays: Reflective essay on student major and CS; research and analyze a computer simulation model
Team Projects
BYOB
Almost all were game variations (Example)
App Inventor
Rendezvous planner
Tornado damage assessment app for Civil Engineers
Textbook buying broker

28. A Look at Our Syllabus….

29. Collaboration with High School Peer
Bill Cowles, Booker T. Washington HS
Montgomery, AL
Almost exactly a 2 hour drive from Tuscaloosa
Shared syllabus, homework ideas, various lectures
Restriction on meeting times
Visit and talk to Bill’s class
Initial planning during CS4HS summer workshop in 2011
Weekend AP training session
Bi-weekly

30. Things that we felt were a success
Creativity Soared
Team Projects Highly Collaborative
Diversity
17 different majors across 29 students (first essay)
Broad interest from Freshman to Seniors
13 of 29 students were women or males from underrepresented populations
Sustainability
Strong interest on campus to offer again in Fall ’12
High School teachers in Alabama want help in pursuing an early adopter Pilot for

31. Things that did not work so well
Rushed to cover all CS Principles topics in a 3-hour course
Recruiting issues (temporary)
Big Data idea never finalized (but almost ready)
Four students dropped the course before midterm
Some team project ideas were unrealistic
1 case of cheating
Tendency to revert to programming

32. Future Principles Challenges
Common exam across multiple teaching approaches (Scratch, Alice, JavaScript)
Reaching the goal of 10k teachers who can cover the content of this material
Building the pathway from K-12 to higher ed course mappings (perhaps not so hard)

33. Our own Future Effort at UA….
Connection from App Inventor -> Java Bridge -> Standard Android SDK in Java
Through collaboration with A+ College Ready, we are proposing an idea that will train 50 new teachers to introduce CS Principles over the next three years (leading up to the first expected offering of the course)
Several in the audience have already committed interest to this
The new CS104 course will be a stable offering each Fall at UA
Potential to serve in-service education students

34. For More Info CS Principles Site College Board Site
Links to past Pilots
College Board Site
Upcoming issue of Inroads on CS Principles
I am happy to share results from our Alabama Pilot (syllabus, exams, projects)

35. Questions on CS Principles?
Please note, I cannot speak for the College Board or the CS Principles PI’s, but glad to share ideas from my own experiences in teaching the Pilot

36. App Inventor Introduction

37. Observation: Teaching CS – 1980s style
Typical example was text-based, trivial, and uninspiring

38. Motivation: New and Exciting Contexts
Media Computation
Programming in a more exciting context by manipulating multimedia artifacts
Robots
Lego NXT
2D/3D Animation Environments
Alice, Scratch, AgentSheets

39. Motivation: Newest Context
Teen smartphone penetration around 62%1
Novel ways to engage through the “creative hook” and tinkering
“I wish I had an app for that”
Social networking and crowd sourcing a daily activity among teens
Increasing adoption of smartphones in science and medical applications
1http://

40. App Inventor Overview Purpose Components of App Inventor Teaching
Prototyping
Components of App Inventor
Designer
GUI builder
Block Editor
Provide behavior behind the GUI
Based on MIT OpenBlocks and Scratch

41. App Inventor Overview
2007: Open Blocks Java Library developed as Masters thesis of Ricarose Roque at MIT
Hal Abelson becomes visiting faculty member at Google
2009: App Inventor Pilot begins in 2009
2011: Google closes Google Labs
2011: MIT announces new Center for Mobile Learning
February 2012: New App Inventor server available at MIT

42. App Inventor Overview

43. Designer
Provides a WYSIWYG editor for designing the visual parts of the app
Also provides ability to attach non-visual components

44. Blocks Editor
Provides an ability to give behavior to an app; the programming part
Typical and expected basic predefined constructs (logic, conditionals, iteration)
Ability to refer to the components and their properties from the Designer
Very similar to Scratch
Built on Open Blocks library from MIT

45. For more info… MIT Center for Mobile Learning main site
Educator’s Site
Links to many Google Newsgroups
Dave Wolber’s App Inventor Site
The App Inventor Repository
Three quality books on the topic

46. App Inventor Live Demo…
Traditional Blocks Language
Overview of environment
Hands-on app building
Samples from CS Principles Course
Fusion tables, stock ticker lookup, mole mash, notext
Quick Overview of App Inventor Java Bridge
Provides a Java .jar file for accessing the App Inventor components and writing Java apps in Eclipse (much easier than standard Android SDK)
UA student Chris Hodapp extending work initiated by Josh Swank to provide a translator from Blocks to Java

47. App Inventor and CS Education Panel
A virtual panel with leading CS Educators
Hal Abelson – MIT
Dave Wolber – University of San Francisco
Michelle Friend – Stanford University
A Google Hangout will begin at 4:40pm CST